Why 'We Design to AAA' Is a Red Flag in an Accessibility Interview
A candidate says, "we design to AAA compliance across the whole site."
Per WCAG's own guidance on conformance levels, what's wrong with claiming full AAA conformance as a general policy?
The correct answer is "WCAG itself says AAA isn't achievable for all content on a whole site."
This subject is explicit: WCAG's own conformance requirements state that AAA conformance is not recommended as a general policy for whole sites, because some AAA criteria — sign-language interpretation for all prerecorded video, or a 7:1 contrast minimum for all text — aren't achievable for every piece of content. AA is the real-world target: rigorous enough to remove the major barriers, realistic enough to apply across an entire product, and the level regulators and legal standards (ADA litigation guidance, Section 508, EN 301 549) actually cite by name.
The distractors misstate the standard: AAA is a real WCAG conformance level, not a nonexistent one, so that framing is simply false; AAA is not "always correct for every product" — that's the exact overclaim this subject flags as a fast way to signal you're reciting a word rather than understanding the standard; and AAA applies across web and mobile alike — WCAG's own text doesn't scope the "not recommended as general policy" caveat to one platform.
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